Screen printing of necktie fabrics



May 21, 1946. J. c. McCURRACH SCREEN PRINTING OF NECKTIE FABRICS Filed Oct. 7, 1942 shall be free of screen Patented Mayizl, 194s UNITED STATES PATENT OFF lcl:

2.400.700 w SCREEN ramrmc or NECKTIE FABRICS v James 0. McCu rrach, Brooklyn, N. r.

Application October 7, 1942, Serial No. 401,2; 2 Claims. (cl. 101-129)- I'h-is invention relates to of fabrics and the manufacture of articles, particularly neckties.

Since a necktie is a relatively small decorative article, it is subjected to careful examination disclosing any small blemishes such as those which the screen printing frequently occur in the screen-printed fabrics,

for instance, foulards. In screen printing successive sections of -a length of cloth, the printer' relies upon considerable care and skill in attempting to cause the printing of adjacent sections to register with each other to produce continuous unbroken printing free of blemishes. As often as not, he obtains only partial register between the successive sections. To appreciate the dimculty, assume that the printed background. color is red; aside from the other design features which may aggravate the trouble, if the red of one sec--. tion should slightly overlap the red of an adjoining section, a deeper red would be produced which would be a blemish readily noted by a discerning eye. Accordingly, I conceived the idea of screen printing in such a manner that the normal @overlap portion or region of inaccuracy shall lie along the cut line or seam .of the necktie, with the screen printing directly producing. an indicator to locate the region of inaccuracy to thug avoid error on the part of the operator. By this invention considerable time and care, is saved in course of screen printing, and the operation so much less skill than herecan be performed with tofore.

Accordingly the objects of the invention are: 1. To avoid the blemishes produced in screen printing. l

2. To produce a necktie whose body portion printed blemishes.

3. To provide for continuous screen printing of a length .of cloth with the blemishes, if any, located along predetermined lines coordinated with the article to cealed in a seam or hem of such article.

4. To provide for screen printing of successive sections of roll of cloth so that the boundaries between the sections shall lie along lines on which 1 the cloth is to be bias cut to form article blanks. 5. To provide for; concealed-located meeting be produced so as to be con-' line between successive screen printed sections of suilicient size to permit rapid screen printing and to form sections from each of which a p11;-

rality of necktie blanks can be cut, with allowance for stretch of the fabric, if desired. 6. To provide an indicator or neutral-line or band-between successive printed areas to guide 7. To afford a clearance area to permitthe operator to screen-print rapidly without concern as to blemishes heretofore caused at overlapping lines of color between successive printed sections.

8. To produce a necktie having an indicator along a bias-cut edge to show that the tie is free of screen print blemishes caused at the junction of successively printed sections ofthe .cloth. This feature may be omitted.

9. To save time and. labor inscreen printing.

Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent as the specification pro ceeds.

Withthe aforesaid objects in view, the invention consists in the novel combinations and arrangements of .parts hereinafter described in their preferred embodiments, pointed out in the subjoined claims, and illustrated on the annexed drawing, wherein like parts are designated by the same reference characters throughout the several views.

In the drawing:

Figure 1 is a plan view of a portion of a fabric strip memberembodying the invention and illustrating a step in the novel process, the lining of the successive sections being schematically indicative of multicolor designs forming a substantially continudusdesign on said "member, one of printed design being omitted, and the dotted lines being the fold 1ines.-

. The advantages of the invention as here outlined are best realized when all of its features and instrumentalities are combined in one and the same structure, but, useful produced embodying less than the whole.

It will be obvious to those skilled in the art to which this invention appertains, that the same may be incorporated in several diiferent construetions. The accompanying drawing, therefore, is

submitted merely as showing the preferred exempliflcation of the invention.

Referring. in detail to the drawing; llldenotes a long piece of fabric as taken from a bolt or roll devices may be ored sections;

of cloth, this being a textileor the type usually subjected to screen printing. .A decorative article or garment may be made from this cloth, and.

ber is printed 'at successive sections until the entire member presents one continuous printed.

pattern. Each section so printed is rectangular in shape, and as many screens are used as there are colors. Thus one color is'printed at a time,

until a desired pattern is produced as illustratively-shown in Fig. 3. If there is any overlapping of the background color there results a color of deeper shade producing a blemish. This has frequently occurred at the junction of different col- Thus after one section has been printed with the background color, the operator shifts the screen to print the next section with the background color. While he has gages to assist him, yet he must exercise great care and skill for accuracy, and nevertheless such overlapping of the background color occurs. If the line of junction cuts across one of the multi-color areas, the problem is greatly complicated.

According to the present invention the succes-' sive printing sections on the cloth member III are shaped in accordance with an article blank or multiple thereof as shown at H. The screen frame may be correspondingly shaped or it may be rectangular and the screen itself blocked out to the desired size and shape. Usually each section II is relatively large and may be 30 or more inches in length. Hence the shape of the section I and he may sever it along is made to conform to that of a group of article I blanks as shown in dotted lines in Fi 1. In the making of neckties, the blanks'are generally laid out and cut as indicated in Fig. 1, with the narrow portions", lsserving for the rear or narrow parts of a four-in-hand tie, and the wider portions l4, l5 serving for the front or wide parts of the same. There may be some cutting away of waste portions I5a, butthisis not important here. Accordingly four neckties are. produced from each section II.

Withthe method described. the: lines draws 150 of printed blemishes are at- It and these oocu jj: at the junctions of the sections H and along th edges of certain of the blanks, such as the poptions M, l5. These lines may be purely imaglef.

'nary and may be merely areas in which the blemishes are confined; or the blemishes along these lines l6 may be deliberately enlarged so as to form an easily visible guide for the cutting operator: or the sections ll may be spaced a small distance apart to leave a narrow band as illustrated in the drawing, which may showin the white color of the cloth to provide one form of an indicator. If desired, such an indicator 2!! a may be concealed in the necktie as in Fig. 4

whereby an informed person can discover whether the fabric has been printed by this novel process so that a minute examination for blemishes is unnecessary. In laying out the sections H, allowance may be made for stretch or shrinkage of the fabrics that may occur during processes of wvat finishing the cloth or fixing the colors. As the printing proceeds, the pattern elements such as H are produced, limited to the areas of the sections H as above described. These may have multi-color patterns as indicated in Fig. 3. On a to those skilled in the art that colored background l8, but the showing of colors has been omitted in Fig. 2 as unnecessary, while in Fig. 1 only a background color is shown which is intended to schematically illustrate the patterns of Figs. 2 and 3. Naturally-any pattern or color combination may be used.

The operator now proceeds to cut the fabric Ill the lines or bands l8 and along the dotted lines of Fig. 1 to provide the blanks l2 to i5. The cloth is cut on the bias and each severed section II appears as at Ila, being a biased member whose upper and lower portions are ofiset and interconnected by an angular portion. There is no occasion for cutting across the. indicator lines l8, and the cutting may pro ceed along the center of the bands It to produce a marking or indicator as shown at tie 2| may consist of two blanks 22, 23 like those at l2 to Hi, interconnected along a bias line 24, and having longitudinal fold lines 25. The longitudinal side edges may be regarded as seamed together, or the seam may be regarded as opened up to show the completed blank of the tie. The indicator 20 or line of blemishes is concealed at the back, or in some other inconspicuous part and may be partially or entirely hidden in the seam or hem of the article.

The invention thus provides novel blanks struc-' tures as at IO, M, Ila and 2| embodying the invention and fulfilling the advantages noted and avoiding the diificulties that have perplexed the.

screens and improved methods of screen printing and of making articles. It will be apparent thefiinvention is also applicable to other articles to positively locate blemishes in a predetermined normally concealed region. Time, skill and labor. are saved on the part of the printer, and careful inspection is avoided in the factgry, so that the cost of the article produced is less.

Within the terms of .the invention, an indicator or blemish line may consist in a marking which need not be located directly between suo cessive sections l|- but may he only along an edge of the cloth member Ill. And it is also possible for an operator to determine the location" ing is continuous and easily discernibledirectly I between adjacent sections, as shownherein.

I claim:

1. The method of screen printing byhand sucv I cessive areas of a longweb of fabric from which article-forming blanks are to be formed'by biassuccessive areas may cutting and in which the be printed with the same color or different colors, the edges of the successive imprints spaced or overlapping through a screenformed with two substantially rectangular end portions joined -by.a connecting portion in the form of a parallelogram the oblique lines of which coincide with the bias-cutting lines.

I 9. The neckwhen either I providing a noticeable de parture from the intended desig whichcom' prises printing successive areas of said fabric design' thus forming ,a the fabric. I

colors, the edges of the successive imprints when either spaced or overlapping providing a noticeable departure from the intended design, which comprises printing successive areas of said fabric through a screen so shaped that two of its edges coincide.

with the bias-cutting lines along which a plurality of said necktie blanks are severed from said web of fabric, said screen including two substantially rectangular end portions and an intermediate portion in the form of a parallelogr m, each oblique edge of said parallelogram portion coin- JAJMES C. MCCURRACH. 

